Can You Be Healthy Without Eating Meat?

People who don't eat meat get almost no creatine from food, so their bodies make more of it themselves — and that's enough to keep their brain and muscles working just as well as meat-eaters.

You can get enough vitamin A on a plant-based diet by eating foods like sweet potatoes, carrots, and spinach—even if your body doesn’t convert nutrients as well due to genetics—because normal portions give you more than enough of the precursor, and studies show vegans and vegetarians still have healthy vitamin A levels.

Your body can make enough vitamin K2 from other forms to keep your bones and heart healthy, so eating foods like cheese or natto probably won’t give you extra benefits — the studies that say otherwise might just be picking up on other things in those foods.

People who eat mostly plants have lower levels of a substance called carnitine in their muscles and blood compared to meat-eaters, but it doesn’t seem to hurt their energy, brain, or overall health — their bodies just hold onto what they have, and taking supplements doesn’t help much.

Eating mostly plants doesn't seem to hurt your brain, muscles, or metabolism — even though you get less of certain nutrients — and it's actually linked to a lower chance of heart disease, diabetes, and early death. That means the overall plant-based way of eating likely does more good than harm.